Imitation in language development: If,when, and why

In order to explore the function of imitation for first language learning, imitative and spontaneous utterances were compared in the naturalistic speech of six children in the course of their development from single-word utterances (when mean length of utterance was essentially 1.0) to the emergence of grammar (when mean length of utterance approached 2.0). The relative extent of imitation, and lexical and grammatical variation in imitative and spontaneous speech were determined. There were inter-subject differences in the extent of imitation, but each child was consistent in the tendency to imitate or not to imitate across time. For those children who imitated, there were both lexical and grammatical differences in imitative and spontaneous speech, and a developmental shift from imitative to spontaneous use of particular words and semantic-syntactic relations between words. The results are discussed as evidence of an active processing of model utterances relative to the contexts in which they occur for information for language learning.     

Speech and Language Difficulties Along with Other Child and Family Factors Associated with Health Related Quality of Life of Australian Children

Speech and/or language difficulties (SaLD) can potentially compromise a child’s health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL). Very few studies have examined associations between SaLD, other child and family factors and HRQoL and none have been undertaken in Australia. We explore these associations using data from a nationally representative Australian sample of 4–5 year old children, extracted from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) (n?=?4386). The Disability-Stress-Coping Model informed variable selection. Three domains of HRQoL were examined, and assessed on physical, emotional and social functioning subscales of the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL). SaLD measures included parent concern about speech/language (Parents’ Evaluation of Developmental Status) and receptive vocabulary ability (adapted Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III). Multiple regression analyses revealed that various child and family factors representing all constructs from the Disability-Stress-Coping Model were significantly associated with HRQoL. Specifically, HRQoL was positively associated with parental warmth and child’s general health and negatively associated with parent speech/language concerns and maternal depression across all domains. Parents with concerns about their pre-school child’s speech and language rate the quality of their child’s health more poorly across physical, emotional and social domains. Associations between parent speech/language concerns and HRQoL were notable for being apparent in a (non-clinical) population sample and for persisting independent of factors such as maternal depression, parenting style and the child’s general health.     

Disentangling the effects of cognitive development and linguistic expertise: a longitudinal study of the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted children

Early language development is characterized by predictable changes in the words children produce and the complexity of their utterances. In infants, these changes could reflect increasing linguistic expertise or cognitive maturation and development. To disentangle these factors, we compared the acquisition of English in internationally-adopted preschoolers and internationally-adopted infants. Parental reports and speech samples were collected for 1 year. Both groups showed the qualitative shifts that characterize first-language acquisition. Initially, they produced single-word utterances consisting mostly of nouns and social words. The appearance of verbs, adjectives and multiword utterances was predicted by vocabulary size in both groups. Preschoolers did learn some words at an earlier stage than infants, specifically words referring to the past or future and adjectives describing behavior and internal states. These findings suggest that cognitive development plays little role in the shift from referential terms to predicates but may constrain children's ability to learn some abstract words.     

SPEECH EVENTS, LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT, AND THE CLINICAL SITUATION

Psychoanalysis brings about psychic change by the mediation of speech. This paper reflects upon the significance of the structure and developmental organisation of the speech event as a verbal and non-verbal unit composed of semantically and prosodically encoded messages, interactions and emotional contact between partners. Spoken words communicate semantic meanings and the affects of a given speech event. Words carry personal emotional meanings which are inseparable from their referential significance. Such emotional meanings are very hard to articulate in words. They are conveyed by the ineffable but essential feelings present in their sound and pronunciation. Speech is an intentionally object-related and emotionally engaging social activity resulting from a child having been spoken to early in life by an adult wanting to establish affective verbal contact. The early organisation and later transformation of the structure of the speech event carries private meanings for each person's listening and speaking stance. A refined understanding of the structural and emotional complexities of verbal communicative exchanges during analysis may enhance the analyst's ability to understand the patient'smanner of participation in the analytic process.     

BRIEF REPORT Bilinguals' recall and recognition of emotion words

Recall of emotion words is superior to neutral words. Prior work reported in this journal (Anooshian & Hertel, 1994) found that this effect was absent in a second language. Words in a second language may thus lack the emotional associations of words acquired in childhood. To determine whether memory probes may be generally useful for assessing emotionality effects in a first versus a second language, Anooshian and Hertel's paradigm was extended in several ways. Recall was compared to recognition, and a variety of types of emotion words were studied, including taboo terms, and phrases likely to be learned in childhood (reprimands). Superior memory for emotion words was obtained in both the recall and recognition tasks, but this occurred in both the first and second language and indeed was stronger, for some stimuli, in the second language. This suggests that, even for bilingual speakers who acquire their second late (after age 12), words in the second language retain rich emotional associations.     

Learning at a distance II. Statistical learning of non-adjacent dependencies in a non-human primate

In earlier work we have shown that adults, infants, and cotton-top tamarin monkeys are capable of computing the probability with which syllables occur in particular orders in rapidly presented streams of human speech, and of using these probabilities to group adjacent syllables into word-like units. We have also investigated adults' learning of regularities among elements that are not adjacent, and have found strong selectivities in their ability to learn various kinds of non-adjacent regularities. In the present paper we investigate the learning of these same non-adjacent regularities in tamarin monkeys, using the same materials and familiarization methods. Three types of languages were constructed. In one, words were formed by statistical regularities between non-adjacent syllables. Words contained predictable relations between syllables 1 and 3; syllable 2 varied. In a second type of language, words were formed by statistical regularities between non-adjacent segments. Words contained predictable relations between consonants; the vowels varied. In a third type of language, also formed by regularities between non-adjacent segments, words contained predictable relations between vowels; the consonants varied. Tamarin monkeys were exposed to these languages in the same fashion as adults (21 min of exposure to a continuous speech stream) and were then tested in a playback paradigm measuring spontaneous looking (no reinforcement). Adult subjects learned the second and third types of language easily, but failed to learn the first. However, tamarin monkeys showed a different pattern, learning the first and third type of languages but not the second. These differences held up over multiple replications, using different sounds instantiating each of the patterns. These results suggest differences among learners in the elementary units perceived in speech (syllables, consonants, and vowels) and/or the distance over which such units can be related, and therefore differences among learners in the types of patterned regularities they can acquire. Such studies with tamarins open interesting questions about the perceptual and computational capacities of human learners that may be essential for language acquisition, and how they may differ from those of non-human primates.     

Isolated words enhance statistical language learning in infancy

Infants are adept at tracking statistical regularities to identify word boundaries in pause-free speech. However, researchers have questioned the relevance of statistical learning mechanisms to language acquisition, since previous studies have used simplified artificial languages that ignore the variability of real language input. The experiments reported here embraced a key dimension of variability in infant-directed speech. English-learning infants (8-10 months) listened briefly to natural Italian speech that contained either fluent speech only or a combination of fluent speech and single-word utterances. Listening times revealed successful learning of the statistical properties of target words only when words appeared both in fluent speech and in isolation; brief exposure to fluent speech alone was not sufficient to facilitate detection of the words' statistical properties. This investigation suggests that statistical learning mechanisms actually benefit from variability in utterance length, and provides the first evidence that isolated words and longer utterances act in concert to support infant word segmentation.     

Object knowledge and the emergence of language

Infants' spontaneous play with objects was examined for evidence of developments in object knowledge in relation to the emergence of words and the single-word period in language development. Subjects were 7 girls and 7 boys, from different ethnic and economic backgrounds, who were studied longitudinally from 9 months to 26 months of age. Two types of displacements of objects in relation to one another were identified in the children's play: separations and constructions. The development of constructions was associated with the emergence of words, and constructions increased with age while separations decreased. The development of specific constructions, which account for knowledge of the particular properties of objects, was more strongly associated with a vocabulary spurt at the end of the single-word period than with chronological age. Despite the wide variation in the infants' ages when developments in language and play were reached, relations between achievements in the two domains were consistent among them, as confirmed with the Friedman test, p<.001. The results are discussed in terms of the cognitive developments required for play with objects and saying words.     

具身模拟程度和具体性对词语效价表征的影响

采用词性判断和启动加工任务考察具身模拟程度和具体性对词语效价具身表征的影响。结果发现,在具身模拟程度低的空间表征中,只有敏感的负性词出现了效价和远近距离的相容效应;在模拟程度高的趋避表征中,正性词和负性词都与趋避动作产生了相容效应,并且具体词的效价和趋避表征之间的联结强于抽象词。     

Perceiving verbal and vocal emotions in a second language

Emotional inferences from speech require the integration of verbal and vocal emotional expressions. We asked whether this integration is comparable when listeners are exposed to their native language and when they listen to a language learned later in life. To this end, we presented native and non-native listeners with positive, neutral and negative words that were spoken with a happy, neutral or sad tone of voice. In two separate tasks, participants judged word valence and ignored tone of voice or judged emotional tone of voice and ignored word valence. While native listeners outperformed non-native listeners in the word valence task, performance was comparable in the voice task. More importantly, both native and non-native listeners responded faster and more accurately when verbal and vocal emotional expressions were congruent as compared to when they were incongruent. Given that the size of the latter effect did not differ as a function of language proficiency, one can conclude that the integration of verbal and vocal emotional expressions occurs as readily in one's second language as it does in one's native language.     

The QWERTY Effect: How typing shapes the meanings of words.

The QWERTY keyboard mediates communication for millions of language users. Here, we investigated whether differences in the way words are typed correspond to differences in their meanings. Some words are spelled with more letters on the right side of the keyboard and others with more letters on the left. In three experiments, we tested whether asymmetries in the way people interact with keys on the right and left of the keyboard influence their evaluations of the emotional valence of the words. We found the predicted relationship between emotional valence and QWERTY key position across three languages (English, Spanish, and Dutch). Words with more right-side letters were rated as more positive in valence, on average, than words with more left-side letters: the QWERTY effect. This effect was strongest in new words coined after QWERTY was invented and was also found in pseudowords. Although these data are correlational, the discovery of a similar pattern across languages, which was strongest in neologisms, suggests that the QWERTY keyboard is shaping the meanings of words as people filter language through their fingers. Widespread typing introduces a new mechanism by which semantic changes in language can arise.     

Perceiving verbal and vocal emotions in a second language

Emotional inferences from speech require the integration of verbal and vocal emotional expressions. We asked whether this integration is comparable when listeners are exposed to their native language and when they listen to a language learned later in life. To this end, we presented native and non-native listeners with positive, neutral and negative words that were spoken with a happy, neutral or sad tone of voice. In two separate tasks, participants judged word valence and ignored tone of voice or judged emotional tone of voice and ignored word valence. While native listeners outperformed non-native listeners in the word valence task, performance was comparable in the voice task. More importantly, both native and non-native listeners responded faster and more accurately when verbal and vocal emotional expressions were congruent as compared to when they were incongruent. Given that the size of the latter effect did not differ as a function of language proficiency, one can conclude that the integration of verbal and vocal emotional expressions occurs as readily in one's second language as it does in one's native language.     

情绪名词的具体性效应：来自ERP的证据

词汇的具体性和情绪性是影响词汇加工的不同因素, 高具体性和情绪性都能够促进词汇的加工。本研究同时操纵词汇的具体性和情绪性, 使用词汇判定任务和愉悦度判断任务, 探讨了情绪名词的具体性效应及其具体性效应是否受词汇情绪信息的影响。结果发现：情绪名词的具体性效应受内隐或外显情绪条件的影响, 具体的情绪词比抽象的情绪词反应时间更短、正确率更高, 诱发了更大的N400和减小的LPC, 但LPC的具体性效应只表现在内隐情绪任务中。词汇的具体性和情绪性的相互影响发生在内隐情绪任务中的语义加工阶段, 正性、负性的具体词和抽象词的加工在N400成分上差异不显著, 而中性具体词和抽象词在N400成分上差异显著, 说明词汇的情绪信息为抽象词的加工提供了充分的语境, 因此消除了具体词的加工优势。     

How infants begin to extract words from speech

A crucial step for acquiring a native language vocabulary is the ability to segment words from fluent speech. English-learning infants first display some ability to segment words at about 7.5 months of age. However, their initial attempts at segmenting words only approximate those of fluent speakers of the language. In particular, 7.5-month-old infants are able to segment words that conform to the predominant stress pattern of English words. The ability to segment words with other stress patterns appears to require the use of other sources of information about word boundaries. By 10.5 months, English learners display sensitivity to additional cues to word boundaries such as statistical regularities, allophonic cues and phonotactic patterns. Infants’ word segmentation abilities undergo further development during their second year when they begin to link sound patterns with particular meanings. By 24 months, the speed and accuracy with which infants recognize words in fluent speech is similar to that of native adult listeners. This review describes how infants use multiple sources of information to locate word boundaries in fluent speech, thereby laying the foundations for language understanding.     

Interaction of emotion and cognition in word recall

Summary Previous research has demonstrated that the emotional properties of words and their imaginability affect their recallability and that verbal material is recalled better when it is related to subjects' current concerns. This study investigates the extent to which this effect of emotion on recall varies as a function of cognitively controllable inference processes and examines the relation of the effects of emotion to those of imaginability and concern-relatedness. Forty different words were presented visually under one of six orienting conditions that varied according to what the subject was asked to rate: their length, pronounceability, concreteness, defineability, the strength of emotion elicited by the word, and the relation of the word to personal concerns. Subjects were then asked to write as many words as they could recall. Words that aroused stronger emotion and were easier to represent in imagery were recalled better than emotionally less arousing and imaginally less evocative words, regardless of the nature of the orienting task. The evidence suggests that the emotional properties of words are evaluated automatically in an early processing stage, without requiring subjects to reflect on word content. Emotional arousal appears to mediate the effects of current concerns on recall. It is correlated with but appears to function independently of word imaginability.     

Friendly drug-dealers and terrifying puppies: Affective primacy can attenuate the N400 effect in emotional discourse contexts

Words that are semantically congruous with their preceding discourse context are easier to process than words that are semantically incongruous with their context. This facilitation of semantic processing is reflected by an attenuation of the N400 event-related potential (ERP). We asked whether this was true of emotional words in emotional contexts where discourse congruity was conferred through emotional valence. ERPs were measured as 24 participants read two-sentence scenarios with critical words that varied by emotion (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) and congruity (congruous or incongruous). Semantic predictability, constraint, and plausibility were comparable across the neutral and emotional scenarios. As expected, the N400 was smaller to neutral words that were semantically congruous (vs. incongruous) with their neutral discourse context. No such N400 congruity effect was observed on emotional words following emotional discourse contexts. Rather, the amplitude of the N400 was small to all emotional words (pleasant and unpleasant), regardless of whether their emotional valence was congruous with the valence of their emotional discourse context. However, consistent with previous studies, the emotional words produced a larger late positivity than did the neutral words. These data suggest that comprehenders bypassed deep semantic processing of valence-incongruous emotional words within the N400 time window, moving rapidly on to evaluate the words’ motivational significance.     

The contribution of the right cerebral hemisphere to the recovery from aphasia: a single longitudinal case study

We examined the role of the right cerebral hemisphere in the recovery from aphasia of HJ, a 50-year-old right-handed and unilingual man who suffered from severe aphasia caused by an extensive left hemisphere (LH) lesion. He was followed-up over 10 months at 4-month intervals, with a lateralized lexical decision task (LDT), an attentional task, and a language battery. Testing started when HJ was 2 months poststroke. In the LDT, words were presented to central vision or lateralized to the left or right visual hemifield. At each test period, we examined the effect of the degree of imageability (high vs. low), and the grammatical class (noun vs. verb) of the targets on HJ's response times and error rates, with left visual field, right visual field, and central vision presentations. The results of the experiment showed that the pattern obtained with the LDT could not be accounted for by fluctuations in attention. There was an interaction of grammatical class with degree of imageability with left visual field displays only. The right hemisphere (RH) was faster with high-imageability words than with low-imageability words, regardless of their grammatical class. There was also an overall RH advantage on response times at 2 and 6 months after onset. This RH predominance coincided with a major recovery of language comprehension and the observation of semantic paralexias, while no major change in language expression was observed at that point. Ten months after onset, the pattern of lateralization changed, and response times for the LDT with either presentation site were equivalent. This LH improvement coincided with some recovery of language expression at the single-word level. The results of this study suggest that, in cases of severe aphasia caused by extensive LH lesions, the RH may play an important role in the recovery process. Furthermore, these results show that the contribution of the two cerebral hemispheres to recovery may vary overtime and affect specific aspects of language.     

Power in methods: language to infants in structured and naturalistic contexts

Methods can powerfully affect conclusions about infant experiences and learning. Data from naturalistic observations may paint a very different picture of learning and development from those based on structured tasks, as illustrated in studies of infant walking, object permanence, intention understanding, and so forth. Using language as a model system, we compared the speech of 40 mothers to their 13‐month‐old infants during structured play and naturalistic home routines. The contrasting methods yielded unique portrayals of infant language experiences, while simultaneously underscoring cross‐situational correspondence at an individual level. Infants experienced substantially more total words and different words per minute during structured play than they did during naturalistic routines. Language input during structured play was consistently dense from minute to minute, whereas language during naturalistic routines showed striking fluctuations interspersed with silence. Despite these differences, infants' language experiences during structured play mirrored the peak language interactions infants experienced during naturalistic routines, and correlations between language inputs in the two conditions were strong. The implications of developmental methods for documenting the nature of experiences and individual differences are discussed.     

Object play as a mediator of the role of exploration in communication skills development

In this study, we investigated exploration and language development, particularly whether preliminary object play mediates the role of exploration in gesture and speech production. We followed 27 infants, aged 8–17 months, and gathered data on the frequency of their exploration, preliminary functional acts with single or multiple objects, and communicative behaviors (e.g., gesturing and single-word utterances). The results of our path analysis indicated that exploration had a direct effect on single-object play, which, in turn, affected gesturing and advanced object play. Gesturing as well as single and multi-object play affected speech production. These findings suggest that exploration is associated with language development. This association may be facilitated by object play milestones in which infants recall the object’s function, which strengthens their memory and representation skills. Further, recalling the usage of an object by the caregivers may encourage an infant’s overall imitation tendency, which is important for learning how to communicate with gestures and words.     

Asymmetries for the visual expression and perception of speech

This study explored asymmetries for movement, expression and perception of visual speech. Sixteen dextral models were videoed as they articulated: 'bat,' 'cat,' 'fat,' and 'sat.' Measurements revealed that the right side of the mouth was opened wider and for a longer period than the left. The asymmetry was accentuated at the beginning and ends of the vocalization and was attenuated for words where the lips did not articulate the first consonant. To measure asymmetries in expressivity, 20 dextral observers watched silent videos and reported what was said. The model's mouth was covered so that the left, right or both sides were visible. Fewer errors were made when the right mouth was visible compared to the left--suggesting that the right side is more visually expressive of speech. Investigation of asymmetries in perception using mirror-reversed clips revealed that participants did not preferentially attend to one side of the speaker's face. A correlational analysis revealed an association between movement and expressivity whereby a more motile right mouth led to stronger visual expressivity of the right mouth. The asymmetries are most likely driven by left hemisphere specialization for language, which causes a rightward motoric bias.